I didn’t really feel like eating that much in the afternoon as it was a little bit later in the day. There was supposed to be a tour of the Monastery at 4:30 so we all headed over for that and looked in the gift shop filling in time. And then we found out that the tour was actually supposed to be at 5:30pm. Ray and I wandered over to the Supermarket if you can call it that. A pretty small little store but it was packed with lots of things. I was craving some salt so I purchased a packet of salted potato chips and a can of lemon drink called KAZ it is fizzy kind of like Lift. We hung around waiting for the tour to start and then headed back to the monastery gift shop paid our 5 euros and waited for the monk to start the tour. It is a Benedictine Monastery so he was all dressed in black robes. The tour was completely in Spanish but he made no apologies for that. You kind of got the jist of what he was saying as we made our way around. What a beautiful building with so much history. What was really interesting was that one particular part of the building that he had to open the doors for us to go into was actually bout 10degrees cooler than outside. Nice in summer when it was hot like yesterday but just imagine it in winter. The Monastery was in pretty good shape but i wonder if they are unable to run the Albergue due to a lack of staff.
Anyway after the tour we went over to the bar next to ur accomodation which was run by a Brazilian Mother and Daughter and I had the pilgrims menu. A mixed salad see the photo and this was followed by baked Chicken and chips and then finally some chocolate ice cream. It was very good. After I had that I decided to go back up to the room and get my stuff ready for the next day. I had finished that task by about 8:00pm and was starting to feel pretty tired. But Bryce and Rory and Ray were still down at the bar and I didn’t want to fall asleep and then not be able to get back into the room. When I went to get out of bed I realised that one of the Compeed dressings had come off my blister in the bed and I was like oh no this is going to be really bad. Pictures included for those that want to see. It had lots of soggy soft stuff on the top and I used a clean towel to wipe that away it wasn’t sore at all so i took that as a good sign. I let it dry out over night and it looked much better in the morning even if it doesn’t really in the picture. I put some second skin on it today as we had thunder and lightening over night and it was still raining in the morning when we were about to set off.
Bryce and I were awake just after 5:30 soo got up and started sorting our stuff. There is just about always a queue for the bathroom and this morning we no exception. There was only one bathroom with shower and toilet for our wing so it made it a bit tricky to say the least. But we did manage to get sorted and were ready to go by 6:00am. I said another prayer for our day before we headed off and we ate off into the dark and drizzle. Thankfully the rain never really got that heavy, the walk out of Samos started pretty easy next to the road and then it went inland and became pretty hilly with some fairly savage climbs. We had to walk 15km to Sarria to get coffee and some breakfast. Sarria is the place that lots of people start the Camino because you have to do at least 100km to Santiago. So there was a noticeable increase in pilgrims it started raining again just as we were arriving so we had our first coffee and some food and then decided to have a second coffee while we waited for the rain to stop and it did. We then had 13kms to go for ur accomodation for the evening it was again quite a lot of uphill. We stopped again for a cold drink with about 6 kms to go. And then pushed on for the rest of the day. My feet are pretty sore and I am wondering about sending my bag tomorrow as we have another 27kms tomorrow.
We are in bunk beds again the guys wont let me go on a top bunk with the issues I have had, I feel bad but that is their call. I just went over to the restaurant that is associated with our Albergue and had a late lunch that might suffice for me for the day. I went for a tomato based Pene Pasta for the first course and then Chicken and Chips or the main and Ice Cream for the dessert. And I have just made my way back up the Albergue to finish this blog and then have a bit of a rest.
One of the things that I was contemplating today as I walked and have thought about a lot of the Camino is that in our world today. I will speak for myself here I know exactly where I am going on just about any given day. I can see what is coming up because it is familiar and I use things like Google Maps to help navigate, and we also generally get there quickly because we travel in a car. In walking the Camino we have not used anything other than our feet to transport us from SJPDP for the 666.1 km that we have travelled and none of it has been quick. But we also just follow The Way marked by Yellow Arrows pointing us in a direction. And you have no idea is the road going left, right, up, or down it often catches you by surprise. I don’t know about you but I often like to be in the know in control even. I like to know where I going, well I do Santiago I just don’t know the path and so I am at the mercy of the pilgrims path and where it takes me. I think there are some similarities in life, I like to be in control and have things sorted, but over the last few months, in fact the last few years I have had to surrender control of my world and allow God to speak. While Fiona was sick things just happened to us largely and we went along for the ride it was really difficult. Then since she died I was reeling and not really sure where things were going. I was just trying to keep my head above the water, working, being a Dad managing the household chores. I felt as though things were really tough and challenging but we were trying to find a new normal. Some things were going well.
But then out of the blue God brought this amazing Woman into my life Yona a widow who understands my story because it is her story as well. Someone who has brought joy back into my world, someone who isn’t trying to replace Fiona because she knows she never can. But we are both really excited about the future that we can have together and what God has for us. We know that we are supposed to be getting married so that is happening on the 4th July in about 6 weeks. But we don’t know yet where we are supposed to be living for 2027. Both of us have felt a real peace God said get married and he will make the rest clear. It is almost as if he is saying follow my arrows and I will direct you path. And that is what we are trying to do, there is a lot to pull together for 2027 but I know that God has it in hand if we can trust him.
How are you doing at allowing God to direct your path in life? Perhaps it is time to let him take the drivers seat for a while, you never know where it might lead. But in my experience it is the best way to do life.
Anyway that is it from me today.
Nga mihi
Mike
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